In a telephone interview with Autoweek, the 24-year-old the KV Racing Technology driver, said “overall it was a good weekend because we were racing against people running up front the whole last year.”

Oddly enough, that smile almost turned into a relief laugh when she explained the tire issue at the end of the race which may have cost her that podium. Last year, running with the Lotus engine, she was anywhere from 50-75 hp off her rivals. Her average finish was 22nd. And, to make matters worse, last year, virtually each time the Lotus got an engine modification, the Swiss-born driver was put back 10 spots on the starting grid. With a current chassis and Chevrolet horsepower she was running up front again, something she hadn't done in a few years.

“There were kinds of things I had to redo and relearn,” de Silvestro said. “I had to go through the old [driving habits] again, and was able to pass a few cars and race with the top cars. That was cool. I learned a lot how to drive [again]. Hopefully I can get even better for the next race. For the set up… we never struggled, last year, with rear-tire degradation because we didn't have the power. And now have to tweak on that and get better.”

One of the factors that gives any racer confidence is being fast right out of the transporter, and that's how her weekend started.

“We rolled off pretty well, the first session went well and second session even better. It was kind of a relief that we were running right up with the fast guys who were doing it last year. It was a lot of fun. I got out of the car with a big smile; we could finally could show what we wanted to do. It was great to come together. And, also, on Saturday to qualify third was pretty cool.

"We'd been nervous before qualifying because I hadn't done a qualifying run in what felt like forever -- it seems like," she continued. "It all went well. Made it to the Fast Six (qualifying round). That was cool.”

St. Petersburg is the site of de Silvestro's best finish in IndyCar, fourth in 2011.

Since all IndyCar teams run the same Dallara DW-12 and de Silvestro brought over her HVM engineer, it wasn't surprising that the basic set up was the same as last year's St. Petersburg formula with some settings updated with what they learned at the Barber test.

What was a little surprising was that Tony Kanaan was a little slower than her in qualifying.

“I know. That's what makes us a good team. When he's a little bit quicker I want to go quicker and vice versa, I think, that's the fun thing, we're both competitive, but, we help each other. We want to be faster than each other each time. The team is getting better, and, hopefully we can finish up there all the time.”

In one of the stranger moments in the race, de Silvestro had a front-row seat to watch J.R. Hildebrand running over Will Power's car, under caution. Her first thought at the time was “Wow! I can't believe it because J.R. was a few laps down. I can't believe he just took Will out at same time. It gave us a free position.”

After the race she received kudos from her team and rivals alike.

"I just knew that her tires were going off,” said Marco Andretti, who passed de Silvestro late in the race and finished third. “I felt for her, as I said, she drove great. I had to muscle her a little bit. It's a selfish sport; I needed a podium,” he added with a laugh.

Failing to grab the first podium was certainly a disappointment to de Silvestro, but, knowing she has the potential to win one soon is keeping her spirits high.